Airline Stories

So the trip to California was so much more than I had hoped it would be. Not only did Shirley get married without a hitch, but I managed to squeeze time to visit my brother as well as seeing the old high school crew (a.k.a. The Lizard People).

The flight out to CA was fairly uneventful. There was a 20-minute stopover in Las Vegas, where those of us who were continuing on to Oakland were allowed to get off the plane, stretch our legs, etc., before it took off again. I took advantage of the opportunity to use a real bathroom and ambled around the terminal a bit. Of course, in Las Vegas, they have slot machines in the airport; why would they not? I briefly thought about trying one out, but then had visions of feverishly feeding quarters into the machine as my plane took off, leaving me stranded, so I just got back on the plane. Two minutes later, a gentleman in my same situation also returned to the plane, crowing about how he just won $200 at the slot machines. Figures.

Even though I was in California specifically for the wedding, I was able to spend a couple days with Mikey, which is, as always, such a pleasure. It's pretty neat how I've gone from seeing him once every two or three years to once every two or three months. Again, let me tell the world how glad I am that he's going to NYU, and that I'll see him even more often!

I also was very lucky to be able to see the Bride and Groom a lot more than most of my friends, since I got to sing in the wedding. The three of us had dinner the night after I arrived, and then I saw them every day after that: at the rehearsal, at the wedding, and at the post-wedding BBQ the next day.

I stayed at the house of my best friend from middle school (yes, I keep in touch with many people from my past...I think I may be a rarity that way) who got married several years ago and who now has a two-year-old daughter. I was so busy running around meeting my brother, the Lizard People, and dealing with wedding stuff that it was a good thing I stayed with her...otherwise I wouldn't have had any time to spend with her, and that would have been a shame.

The trip back to Philadelphia proved itself to be more eventful than the trip there, and not in a good way. It started with a security line at Oakland airport that seemed worse than a line for a ride at Disneyland: the line kept moving, but it went around the baggage area, folded in on itself, went outside and back inside, and the TSA woman at the end of the line announced that it would be a 35-minute wait as I entered the queue. Good thing I got there early. I managed to make it on the plane without much hassle, and I sat on an aisle seat next to a nice woman and her son. Both her son and I were reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, so she struck up a small conversation with me. Unfortunately about ten minutes into the flight, her teenage daughter, who had been sitting across the aisle from us, started getting sick and wanted to sit next to her mom. I'm a nice person...many would say TOO nice...so I traded seats with her.

Too late, I realized why this girl was getting sick. She and her brother had been sitting across the aisle, she in the middle and he at the window, and her brother was the fartiest little ten-year-old boy I think I've ever met. Besides the fact that I traded an aisle seat for a middle seat, I also seemed to have inherited the spot next to a kid with more gas than Saudi Arabia. It smelled like a combination of rotting eggs, day-old milk, with a slight hint of diarrhea for a good five and a half hours. Believe me, I was counting the minutes until our plane was scheduled to land...only it didn't land on schedule.

Yes, due to thunderstorms in the Philly area, the Philadelphia airport CLOSED while my plane was in the air. We circled around for a while until we got low on fuel, so we had to land in Pittsburgh to refuel and wait for a go from the tower in Philly. I was not amused. Not only had I been squashed next to Smelly the Fart Monster, but Southwest doesn't serve meals like normal airlines; they just serve snacks, so my diet for that day had consisted of a bagel I had eaten before getting on the plane, two Oreos, a bag of peanuts, a breakfast bar, and two Graham crackers. And it was dinner time by now. They did let us get off the plane in Pittsburgh to get something to eat while they refueled, but we ended up waiting around for about an hour and a half before the tower let us get back in the air. 12 hours after I left my friend's house in San Francisco, I finally made it back home. It's been quite a day, and with that, I think it's time for bed.